Kearney looked him up and down.

“Who the hell is this?” he said.

“Michael, this is Tim. Tim, this is Michael.”

“Hi,” said Tim. He held out his hand. “I won’t get up.”

“Jesus Christ, Anna,” Kearney said.

He went through to the back room, where a brief search turned up some clean Levi’s and an old black leather jacket he had once liked too much to throw away. He put them on. There was also a cycle-courier bag with the Marin logo on the flap, into which he began emptying the contents of the little green chest of drawers. Looking up blankly from this task, he discovered that Anna had washed the chalked diagrams off the wall above it. He wondered why she would do that. He could hear her talking in the bedroom. Whenever she tried to explain anything, her voice took on childish, persuasive values. After a moment she seemed to give up and said sharply, “Of course I don’t! What do you mean?” Kearney remembered her trying to explain similar things to him. There was a noise outside the door and Tim poked his head round.

“Don’t do that,” Kearney said. “I’m nervous already.”

“I wondered if I could help?”

“No, thanks.”

“It’s just that it’s five o’clock in the morning, you see, and you come in here covered in mud.”

Kearney shrugged.

“I see that,” he said. “I see that.”

Anna stood angrily by the door to watch him out. “Take care,” he said to her, as warmly as he could. He was two flights down the stone stairs when he heard her footsteps behind him. “Michael,” she called. “Michael.” When he didn’t answer, she followed him out into the street and stood there shouting at him in her bare feet and white nightdress. “Did you come back for another fuck?” Her voice echoed up and down the empty suburban street. “Is that what you wanted?”

“Anna,” he said, “it’s five o’clock in the morning.”

“I don’t care. Please don’t come here again, Michael. Tim’s nice and he really loves me.”

Kearney smiled.

“I’m glad.”

“No, you’re not!” she shouted. “No, you’re not!”

Tim came out of the building behind her. He was dressed, and he had his car keys in his hand. He crossed the pavement without looking at Anna or Kearney, and got into his car. He wound the driver’s window down as if he thought about saying something to one of them, but in the end shook his head and drove off instead. Anna stared after him puzzledly then burst into tears. Kearney put his arm round her shoulders. She leaned in to him.

“Or did you come back to kill me,” she said quietly. “The way you killed all those others?”

Kearney walked off towards the Underground station at Gunnersbury. His phone chirped at him suddenly, but he ignored it.

Heathrow Terminal 3, hushed after the long night, maintained a slow dry warmth. Kearney bought underwear and toilet articles, sat in one of the concessions outside the departure lounge reading the Guardian and taking small sips of a double espresso.